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getting a bit sick of seeing family and friends losing it after too much to drink. im not a big drinker anyway, although its starting to creep into most evenings at home where we just have a few wines or somethings. its too much, i want to drink less. the taste of beer doesnt do much for me, i quite like the taste of whisky and rum but always have to have it with a coke or somethings, cant drink it neat.
im not thinking i need to go tee-total, a nice cold one on a summers day, or wine with meals abroad would still appeal, but i just fancy more nights in and out where i decide not to drink.
however, i dont think ive really found a drink that id be happy with 'all night' to replace the obligatory pints of beer and a few rum and cokes to finish with.
coke is too sweet. non alcoholic beer doesnt taste that good and like i said, im not a big fan of beer anyway. water or fruit juice would soon get a bit 'boring'.
for those who stay sober all night, what have you all replaced alcohol with? any good suggestions that i can try out? it may be that i 'need' that pint glass in my hand when im out, do pubs generally do pints of NA beer on tap or would it all be bottles and cans?
all suggestions welcome please, id love to find something that i do really like and not think its a poor substitute.
cheers
Soda and lime juice. Lots of ice.
Fresh lime. Get a Mexican Elbow.
Ginger beer, or various flavours of squash, including err ginger.
Tonic water. Plain iced water maybe with a squeeze of lime or lemon.
Lime and soda.
Peppermint tea is nice too.
Kombucha....
Soda and black works quite well followed by coffee instead of whiskey
As things you could ask for in a pub the various better brands tonic waters might be worth a try if you're not wanting sweet stuff like fruit juice etc but pubs tend to only have pretty small bottles. Ginger beer mixed with lime juice is maybe worth a try too.
At home Sipsmith make a few different alcohol free distilled concoctions - something you'd maybe drink in the place of something like gin. Quite interesting but very particular you'd have to try it - and try mixing it with various things - to figure out if it does the trick for you but a bottle is pretty expensive - about the same as you'd pay for a decent gin - so a gamble if you don't like it.
Soda and black works quite
theres something in cash and carry pub blackcurrant that makes me go mental 🙂
It used to be my drink of choice as designated driver back in my early twenties - I caused a lot of trouble.
As I think I’ve mentioned on the other thread, the white Eisberg 0% wine is really good. Me and her can do a bottle each a night. I’m drinking so much of it my kids are joking I’m turning into a non alcoholic.
Soda and lime. Fresh lime though
Ginger beer.
A country pub that we have Sunday lunch at regularly has a rhubarb and ginger cordial, it works for me because it's sharp and tangy, so not easy to drink loads, but is quite more-ish.
Lager shandy made with non-alcohol lager is surprisingly good.
Virgin Mary.
Still feels like a real drink.
Ginger beer and lime.
Lime and Soda is my choice when driving.
At home I've been drinking pints of cold fruity/hippy tea. Make it with a third of a pint of hot water, then filling up with cold and ice.
Refreshing and lots of variation without being overly sweet.
Robinson’s lime and mint cordial, made strong with lots of ice is utterly wonderful. Add mint leaves for Mohito. We are getting through a bottle in two days.
How about simply reducing the amount consumed? Easy for me to say - I've consumed the thick end of a bottle of fairly powerful Zinfandel and I'm on the brandy now. Not lost it yet though.
Tea.
Lemon and lime bitters the Australian way
Tomato juice loads of tobasco, works for me.
JeZ
At home I like cucumber syrup with whatever you like to mix it with (soda, lemonade, tonic, water). Nice and refreshing, not too sweet and definitely a change from the standard soft drinks available.
I really wish pubs and bars would do kombucha. It can be delicious. There’s a really tiny bit of alcohol potentially which may make it more satisfying.
Some commercial brands seem close to pop though, quite sweet. The proper idea is that the sugar is predominantly fermented, feeds the scoby and isn’t in the drink.
If you don’t want alcohol sugar or caffeine social drinking is tough.
Good luck. I’m in the same boat. Often volunteer to be the driver and it’s hard to be involved in a glass in hand evening without getting a load of sugar. Water is pretty nice as long as it’s not chlorinated tap stuff. Fizzy is socially acceptable.
I know. Life used to seem more exciting with a few pints!
Most pubs are geared up for tea and coffee, we often have a pot of tea for two. Alcohol is an insidious beast it slowly creeps up and controls your life, I used to be one of those sad people who think you need to be intoxicated to enjoy other people's company.
Alcohol is an insidious beast it slowly creeps up and controls your life, I used to be one of those sad people who think you need to be intoxicated to enjoy other people’s company.
which i think is where im at now. itll be an interesting experiment to see if i can actually enjoy watching other people slowly losing their inhibitions and laughing at daft stuff whilst being sober myself. im not sure ill succeed, but id like to, thats why i want to find the right drinks rather than 'diet coke please mate' all night.
the 0% wine sounds interesting, ill defo try that out, thanks brant. quick google throws up waitrose/sainsburys, do they sell it in 'poor peoples supermarkets' too, morrisons or even aldi/lidl?
also a lot of love for 'lime and soda' so ill try that out. sorry for my ignorance, but what would be the difference between tonic water and soda water? i had a drink of pure orange and tonic water which was nice enough last night, but id imagine a whole night on it would blow me up.
and are we talking the soda/tonic water with a wedge of lime chucked in, or some actual lime juice in there too?
i do like ginger beer, especially the fiery stuff, so id always be happy with that but again, its the fizz thatd probably do for me all night tho.
tomato juice and tabasco also sounds good, ill defo try that. it can be my 'spirit substitute' 😀
kombucha(sp)? had a lass at work make that when we were doing sourdough, it looked rank 😀 but as itd be hard to find anyone selling it i dont think id get the chance anyway.
AF lager/shandy also sounds worth a try.
i think ive defo got some good suggestions for home drinking here, i can work my way through a few, i think priority now will be that 'pint in hand' feeling when youre propping up the bar with your mates.
do pubs generally have pints of AF lager, or just bottled/canned stuff? and im also guessing that this wont save me any money, itll all be as dear (if not dearer) as the 'proper' stuff, its just the alcohol ill be saving, yep?
thanks all, keep em coming......
I'm coming up to 4 months tee-total and this is where I am at.
Most of the time pints of fizzy water, maybe with some ginger cordial added. Suddenly seems a bit strange drinking cold drinks on winter evenings so I am drinking lots of Tick Tock Vanilla Chai Rooibos Tea.
If I fancy a beer, I'm currently on the 0% Heineken, wouldn't normally touch Heineken but this is pretty good.
Just found this:
https://www.marksandspencer.com/s/food-to-order/adventures-in-food/alcohol-free-gandt
Which is I think is just like G and T and not too expensive.
Yes, I think the Eisberg wine is good, I just ordered some from Amazon.
Good Luck,
Mick
also a lot of love for ‘lime and soda’ so ill try that out. sorry for my ignorance, but what would be the difference between tonic water and soda water? i had a drink of pure orange and tonic water which was nice enough last night, but id imagine a whole night on it would blow me up.
and are we talking the soda/tonic water with a wedge of lime chucked in, or some actual lime juice in there too?
Soda Water is just carbonated water. Tonic water has other stuff in it to make it taste horrible.
The juice of half a lime freshly squeezed in a glass with some ice. Top up with soda water.
If no fresh limes are available a dash of Roses Lime Cordial will do at a push.
Apple strudel cocktail
Apple juice
Vanilla syrup
cinnamon
wee clove grating if you can get it.
mudfish
Subscriber
I really wish pubs and bars would do kombucha. It can be delicious
really like the Ginger and Lemon and unlike Ginger Beer isn't full of sugar
Bitters tonic water lots of ice
I know that angostura bitters is actually alcoholic but a splash will be negligible.
Ginger beer, lime juice, bitters, no vodka: Virgin-ish Moscow Mule
well im back from tescos with a good assortment of Eisberg wine (both red and white), ginger beer, soda water, robinsons lime and mint cordial, limes, flavoured sparkling water, tomato juice, an Erdinger bottle, probs a few other bits too. ill enjoy mixing and matching over the next few days.
interested in these 'bitters' that are being suggested. are you only talking angostura, or others too? been googling and i can see a small bottle (200ml) is a tenner which is a fair whack, but apparently you only put a dash in yep? how do you all measure your 'dash'?
Soda Water is just carbonated water
but different to 'sparkling water' yep?
thanks
had some success, but not total 😀
firstly, the drinking at home is far better, im happy with the suggestions above and have tried many out. i like enough of them to be totally happy with some of the combos and dont feel the need for alcohol now at home, altho i may have on the odd occasion still.
from 'taste comparisons' and trials, ive discovered i really dont like soda water. i also didnt like the tomato and worcester sauce which surprised me. maybe it was hot tomato soup with worcester sauce that i remembered liking. mebbes ill heat up the remaining juice and use it as soup 😀
the eisberg wine. i bought a bottle of white and one of red. the white is pleasant enough, easy to drink but i didnt really get much sense of 'wine' i bet i couldnt tell it apart from a carton of grape juice in a blind test. maybe thats the point?
the red did actually have more of a taste of wine about it.
my go-to drink now is ginger beer and teco rhubarb sparkling water, its lovely. also like the ginger beer with lime.
another plus has been the robinsons lime and mint cordial, again with either tonic or sparkling water, not soda.
ive also made an intersting discovery, or should i say my wife has. she returned home from work with a bottle of 'non-alcoholic spirit', apparently she met the maker of this stuff, 'Feragaia'. never heard of it before. (why would i?)
tried it neat with ice, yuk i thought. mixed it with tonic, then ginger beer and i actually quite like it, it does trick your mind into thinking its actually an alcoholic drink which is good.
so thats home drinking sorted. pub is a different story. went out for the christmas meal with a few from work and their wives. i couldnt drink anyway as on call so i thought itd force me into seeing whetehr this could work for me or not.
old speckled hen NA beer. first taste, hmmmm not too bad. by the end of the pint it was tasting pretty rank. a second pint went down slowwwly. thought id try something else. do you have ginger beer? no, we do have cranberry juice tho (wtf?). er..... any sparkling water, preferably flavoured? no, sorry.
tried another pub, yes they sold ginger beer, not much else NA.
so i think im at the stage where im happy not drinking at home, but i think when i go out ill have to join in. not so bad tho, we rarely go out and now and then i may strike it lucky with something NA.
thanks for all your suggestions.
ps..... i still need to try the bitters, didnt get an answer to my question ^^^ if anyone can indulge me?
cheers
interested in these ‘bitters’ that are being suggested. are you only talking angostura, or others too? been googling and i can see a small bottle (200ml) is a tenner which is a fair whack, but apparently you only put a dash in yep? how do you all measure your ‘dash’?
Morrisons do a mixed berry, zero sugar fizzy drink in a 2l bottle. It's bloody lovely.
Grapefruit and soda is good.
Seedlip and tonic is also nice, although I think most of the flavour comes from the fever tree tonic. It is expensive though which might be a problem if you are like me and need to keep drinking something wet.
We have just received a 3 bottle pack of three spirit. It was. Stupidly expensive so hopefully it's good.
I also hate the sugary alternatives a lot of pubs offer. Quit drinking 2 years ago now though and don't regret it at all
for a cut down, rather than a stop, a weak G&T has just enough gin to give it the smell as much as anything, and spruce it up with lime or cucumber and peppercors or juniper berries or...... whatever is appropriate to your taste.
And then when the drink's half gone, top up with ice and another tonic, and repeat, so your tastebuds adapt and at the end of the night you've had maybe half or one shot of gin.
I have heard say that you can also use G&T flavouring (from the cake aisle in big supermarkets) but I find it a bit synthetic.
Personally I can drink tonic on its own anyway.
There are some great ginger beers around at the moment.
Elderflower cordial with sparkling water.
Stowford press low alcohol cider is very good.
Ginger and lemongrass cordial with sparkling water is a good home option, I think. Not the same as a nice cold beer, but then what is?
@Sadexpunk from the description your Virgin Bloody Mary was missing the Tabasco for some fire. Cosy Club do these and ask how fiery you want the drink, add it in small amounts if you're not a Phal or Vindaloo devotee.
Grapefruit juice and coke.
Sounds revolting. Looks revolting. Tastes really nice. Has to be full fat coke, though.